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Teleology
Teleology (telos: end, purpose) is the philosophical study of design, purpose, directive principle, or finality in nature or human creations. A teleology is any philosophical account that holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The adjective "teleological" has a broader usage, for example in discussions where particular ethical theories or types of computer programs are sometimes described as teleological because they involve aiming at goals. Teleology was explored by Plato and Aristotle, by Saint Anselm during the 11th century AD, and later by Carl Jung and Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgment. It was fundamental to the speculative philosophy of Hegel. A thing, process, or action is teleological when it is for the sake of an end, i.e., a telos or final cause. In general, it may be said that there are two types of final causes, which may be called intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14474a.htm and http://www.texttribe.com/routledge/T/Teleology.html *A thing or action has an extrinsic finality when it is for the sake of something external to itself. In a way, people exhibit extrinsic finality when they seek the happiness of a child. If the external thing had not existed that action would not display finality. *A thing or action has an intrinsic finality when it is for none other than its own sake. For example, one might try to be happy simply for the sake of being happy, and not for the sake of anything outside of that. Since the Novum Organum of Francis Bacon teleological explanations in science tend to be deliberately avoided because whether they are true or false is argued to be beyond the ability of human perception and understanding to judge."The received intellectual tradition has it that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, revolutionary philosophers began to curtail and reject the teleology of the medieval and scholastic Aristotelians, abandoning final causes in favor of a purely mechanistic model of the Universe." pages 23-24. Some disciplines, in particular within evolutionary biology, are still prone to use language that appears teleological when they describe natural tendencies towards certain end conditions, but these arguments can almost always be rephrased in non-teleological forms. Etymology The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos (root: τελε-, "end, purpose")Eric Partridge, [http://books.google.gr/books?id=xA9dxrhfa5kC&dq= Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English], Routledge, 1977, p. 4187. and -λογία "a branch of learning". The term was coined in 1728 by the German philosopher Christian von Wolff. Contrasted with philosophical naturalism Teleology traditionally is contrasted with philosophical naturalism, which views nature as lacking design or purpose. For example, naturalism would say that a person has sight simply because he has eyes. In other words, function follows form (eyesight follows from having eyes). Teleology is the reverse of this position: a person has eyes because he has the need of eyesight (although a naturalist could just as easily use this argument from the perspective of evolutionary pressure). In this case, form follows function (eyes follow from having the need for eyesight). Two classic examples of these opposing views are found in Aristotle and Lucretius, the former as a supporter of teleology and the latter as a supporter of what is now often called philosophical naturalism, or accidentalism: Extrinsic and intrinsic finality Teleology depends on the concept of a final cause or purpose inherent in all beings. There are two types of such causes, intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality. *Extrinsic finality consists of a being realizing a purpose outside that being, for the utility and welfare of other beings. For instance, minerals are "designed" to be used by plants which are in turn "designed" to be used by animals. *Intrinsic finality consists of a being realizing a purpose by means of a natural tendency directed toward the perfection of its own nature. In essence, it is what is "good for" a being. For example, physical masses obey universal gravitational tendencies that did not evolve, but are simply a cosmic "given." Similarly, life is intended to behave in certain ways so as to preserve itself from death, disease, and pain. Over-emphasizing extrinsic finality is often criticized as leading to the anthropic attribution of every event to a divine purpose, or superstition. For instance, "If I hadn't been at the store today, I wouldn't have found that $100 on the ground. God must have intended for me to go to the store so I would find that money." or "We won the game today because of my lucky socks." Such abuses were criticized by Francis Bacon ("De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum," III, iv), Descartes ("Principia Philosophiæ", I, 28; III, 2, 3; "Meditationes", III, IV), and Spinoza (Ethica, I, prop. 36 app.). Intrinsic finality, while more subtle, provides the basis for the teleological argument for the existence of God and or some supernatural force, and its modern counterpart, intelligent design. Proponents of teleology argue that it resolves a fundamental defect in philosophical naturalism. They argue that naturalism focuses exclusively on the immediate causes and mechanisms of events, and does not attend to the reason for their synthesis. Thus, it is argued, if we take a clock apart, we discover in it nothing but springs, wheels, pivots, levers etc. But having explained the mechanism which causes the revolutions of the hands on the dial, is it reasonable to say that the clock was not made to keep time? Philosophers of science respond that since Aristotle, biology has been profoundly concerned with the constraint function places on structure, and that the arrival of Darwinian evolutionary theory did not alter this concern. A classic and early example is Darwin's interest in functional constraints on the evolutionary development of the beaks of Galapagos finches. Of these birds, Darwin wrote, "Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends. " (Origin of Species, chapter 19) Classical Greek teleology Plato summarized the argument for teleology as follows in Phaedo, arguing that it is error to fail to distinguish between the ultimate Cause, and the mere means by which the ultimate Cause acts: Thus, it is argued, those who attempt to explain nature in terms of nature alone are forced to deny the ultimate binding Good (or other such invisible forces, such as gravity and electromagnetism) in the universe, and hope that they will someday discover a stronger supporting argument ("Atlas" or, for example, God) to hold their universe together. Similarly, Aristotle argued that it is error to attempt to reduce all things to mere necessity, because such thinking neglects the purpose, order, and "final cause" that causes the apparent necessity. He wrote: In addition to the final cause, Aristotle's analysis speaks of the material cause, efficient cause, and formal cause. Modern/postmodern philosophy Historically, teleology may be identified with the philosophical tradition of Aristotelianism. The rationale of teleology was explored by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement and, again, made central to speculative philosophy by Hegel and the various neo-Hegelian schools, including that of Marx. In this interpretation of the history of our species on this globe — an interpretation at variance both with Darwin and with what is now called analytic philosophy — the point of departure is not so much formal logic and scientific fact but 'identity'. (In Hegel's terminology: 'objective spirit'.) Individual human consciousness, in the process of reaching for autonomy and freedom, has no choice but to deal with an obvious reality: the collective identities (the multiplicity of world views, ethnic, cultural and national identities) which divide the human race both now and in the past, and which set off (and always have set off) different groups of people against each other in violent conflict. Hegel conceived of the 'totality' of mutually antagonistic world-views and life-forms in history as being 'goal-driven', i.e. oriented towards an end-point in history in which the 'objective contradiction' of 'subject' and 'object' would eventually 'sublate' into a form of life which has left violent conflict behind it. This goal-oriented, 'teleological' notion of the 'historical process as a whole' is present in a variety of 20th Century authors, from Lukács and Jaspers to Horkheimer and Adorno. According to Jean-François Lyotard (1979) teleology and "grand narratives" are eschewed in a postmodern attitude. Teleology may be viewed as reductive, exclusionary and harmful to those whose stories are erased.Lochhead, Judy (2000). Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, p. 6. (ISBN 0-8153-3820-1) Against this, Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that a narrative understanding of one's self is liberatory, in understanding one's capacity as an independent reasoner and, also, in understanding one's dependence on others and on the social practices and traditions in which one participates. Social practices may be understood as teleologically orientated to internal goods. For example, practices of philosophical and scientific enquiry are teleologically ordered to the elaboration of a true understanding of their objects. Although beginning with his book After Virtue, which famously dismissed the naturalistic teleology of Aristotle's 'metaphysical biology', MacIntyre has cautiously moved from that book's account of a sociological teleology toward an exploration of what remains valid in a more traditional teleological naturalism. Science Anthropic principle In recent decades, a form of teleological reasoning has reappeared in certain quarters of physics and cosmology, under the heading of anthropic principle, a term Brandon Carter coined in 1973. One of the problems the anthropic principle tries to address is this: Why did the universe begin in a very simple state (Big Bang) but has since grown ever more complex, to the extent that it is hospitable to human life, even more so than is necessary for survival--E.G., advanced human civilization? Philosophy of Science Contemporary accounts of teleology within biology are heavily influenced by Larry Wright's "etiological" account of teleology.Wright, Larry. Teleological Explanations: An Etiological Analysis of Goals and Functions, (University of California Press, 1976). Also see Wright, Larry. The Case Against Teleological Reductionism. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (Vol. 19, No. 3 1968) and Wright, Larry. Functions, The Philosophical Review (Vol. 83, No. 2 1973), pp. 139-168. Wright sought to supply a definition of "function" that could be applied to natural phenomena as well as human artifacts - that is, human constructions such as a hammer. Most contemporary accounts of teleology follow in the steps of Wright's etiological account (Ruth MillikanMillikan, Ruth. Varieties of Meaning (The 2002 Jean Nicod Lectures) (Cambridge, Mass : MIT Press, 2004) for instanceFor a collection of essays mostly in the line of Wright's thought, see David J. Buller, Function, Selection, and Design (State University of New York Press, 1999)). There is, however, disagreement over its use. Some, such as Godfrey-SmithGodfrey-Smith, Functions: Consensus Without Unity and Ernst Mayr,Mayr, Ernst. The Idea of Teleology, Journal of the History of Ideas (Vol. 53 1992), pp. 117-135. object to any sort of etiological theory of teleology that attempts to explain both natural phenomena as well as human artifacts. Their accounts are therefore naturalistic accounts of teleology. For a very detailed discussion of this resurgence of teleology in natural science, see Barrow and Tipler (1986). While long stretches of this monograph are technically challenging, it also includes: * A circa 200pp masterly review of much of the intellectual history of teleology and design arguments. Here the authors draw attention to the distinction, drawn by L. E. Hicks in 1883 and since ignored, between teleology and eutaxiology; * A fair discussion of the implications of evolutionary biology for teleology, granting pride of place to the writings of Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr; Evolutionary psychology See also *Efficient cause, final cause *Emergence *Purpose *Ed Ricketts *Teleological argument *Naturalism (philosophy) *Orthogenesis *Dysteleology *Destiny *Moirae *Cybernetics *anthropic principle *Rationalism *Elohim References Further reading * Aristotle, Metaphysics Book Theta (translated with an introduction and commentary by Stephen Makin), Oxford University Press, 2006. (ISBN 0-19-875108-7 / 978-0-19-875108-3) * John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford University Press, 1986. (ISBN 0-19-282147-4) * Julian Bigelow, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Norbert Wiener, 1943, "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology," Philosophy of Science 10: 18-24. * Monte Ransome Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, Oxford University Press, 2005. (ISBN 0-19-928530-6 / 978-0-19-928530-3) * Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Polity Press, 2007. (ISBN 978-0-7456-1977-4 / 0-745-61977-0) *Georg Lukacs. History and Class Consciousness. (ISBN 0-262-62020-0) *Horkheimer and Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. (ISBN 0-8047-3632-4) * Alasdair MacIntyre, 'First Principles, Final Ends, and Contemporary Philosophical Issues', in idem., The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, 2006. (ISBN 978-0-521-67061-6 / 0-521-67061-6) *Herbert Marcuse. Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity. (ISBN 0-262-13221-4) *Machamer, P. (1977), “Teleology and Selection Processes”, in R. G. Colodny, ed., Logic, Laws, and Life: Some Philosophical Complications, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp.129- 142. * Lowell Nissen, Teleological Language in the Life Sciences, Rowman & Littlefield, 1997 (ISBN 0-8476-8694-9) *Wimsatt, W. (1972), “Teleology and the Logical Structure of Function Statements,” Studies In the History and Philosophy of Science, 3: 1-80. *Wright, L. (1976), Teleological Explanation: An Etiological Analysis of Goals and Functions, Berkeley: University of California Press. Category:Philosophical terminology Category:Historiography